[After reviewing my grades, I decided that Rick Santorum's candor about the importance of negotiating and willing to compromise with the "other side" deserves a bit more credit. I hereby revise his grade to a C-.]

Sad truth is that this was really amateurish overall. Where was the serious discussion about the costs of war and peace (except from Ron Paul)? Nuclear weapons responsibilities and challenges? North Korea? Sudan? Piracy? The complications and challenges of the Arab Spring? And what of non-traditional but important national security issues like global water management, climate change, pandemics, natural disasters, and the growing sense aroundt the world that America's mystique has been ruptured and is in decline. Other than platitudes from Romney, very few got into the realities of America's limited stock of power today.

9:59 pm

AEI visiting scholar Marc Thiessen asks good question of candidates about what issue they haven't heard about tonight that they worry about or which might be hidden behind a blind spot.

Santorum says -- predictably -- it's all about "radical Islamists." Also says that we need to do more care for Central and South American allies.

Ron Paul says that need to get out of unnecessary wars. Gives a rosy view of Taliban -- says they are trying to kill us not here but over there... Rick Perry says China is not a country of virtue -- says that "Communist China is destined for the dustbin of history."

Mitt Romney says China is a big issue. Agrees with Santorum that Latin America is a lurking national security issue -- Hezbollah, he says, is building capacity in Latin America.

Herman Cain says that cyber security is the biggest threat ahead.

New Gingrich says he worries about nuclear/WMD attack; electro-magnetic pulse attack, and cyber attack. Michele Bachmann believes that there is a radical Islamic threat here inside the United States now.

Jon Huntsman says that a trust deficit at home -- people not believing in Congress or their government -- is a national security problem, that joblessness and an economy not working is a national security threat.

9:53 pm

Former Cheney Chief of Staff and global war on terror architect David Addington from Heritage Foundation up. Someone call Jane Mayer. Asks about Syria -- and asks candidates to outline American interests in the region.

Herman Cain says he would not support No Fly Zone over Syria -- says that we should work with allies to constrain Syria's options, curtail oil purchases and use economic tools, not military ones, to influence Syria.

Rick Perry want a No Fly Zone over Syria. Perry really seems uncomfortable with just about every question.

Jon Huntsman said the US missed the Persian Spring; got involved in Libya where the US has no interests; and now is holding back on Syria where it does have interests -- and the biggest interest is Israel. Says we need to do more to prevent a nuclear armed Iran and need to work more closely with Israel. Refrain.

Ron Paul making sense about the blowback that comes from intervention in other countries. Links al Qaeda to US bases in Saudi Arabia and thinks that imposition of a no fly zone is exactly the kind of thing that would inspire an al Qaeda like reaction. Wants the US to learn how to "mind its own business."

Mitt Romney on a platitude streak -- talking about America reasserting its power in the world and not apologizing for leadership. Romney says no on No Fly Zone over Syria -- but YES to covert action inside Syria to achieve "regime change."

9:39 pm

Rick Perry oddly says "here we are again Mitt" -- agreeing with one another -- this time, on the "magnet" as a draw pulling in illegal immigrants. Perry says he knows how to secure the border -- that he's been doing it for ten years. (Then why is the border a problem today??)

Mitt Romney says that "amnesty is a magnet" and that we have to stop all of the support and stickiness that draws in illegal immigrants. That said, he believes US should "stable a green card" to completed advanced degrees.9:34 pm

Rick Perry says that within 12 months he will close down the Mexico-US border and make it secure. Ron Paul says that the "war on drugs" is another war he'd cancel. Good line actually.

Ron Paul called the federal war on drugs a total failure and believes that sick and dying people should have access to marijuana if they want it. Says US should regulate some drugs like alcohol.

Cain says an insecure border is a national security threat. Can't tell whether Cain supports amnesty for illegals or not -- my sense not, but he has a way of speaking that just doesn't help one get much detail about his views.

Will have to check out the clock later on how long each of these candidates got to speak. It seems, surprisingly, that Rick Santorum is getting much more time than anyone else to speak. Not hearing as much from Mitt Romney as we should tonight. Gingrich is getting a good deal of air time.

Gingrich supports an H-1 visa for everyone who gets a graduate degree here and who came from other countries. Wants US to educate folks and keep the best. References Albert Einstein. Thinks on immigration, US needs a comprehensive approach that secures border but that also reviews those who have been here illegally and creates a way of keeping those who have built solid lives here -- and deport those that haven't. Bachmann opposes this sort of program and doesn't think there should be amnesty for 11 million workers in the US illegally. She supports the Steve Jobs platform of granting visas to highly skilled workers like chemists and engineers. Impressed that she knew about Steve Jobs' conversation with President Obama.9:16 pm

AEI economics staff member asks a question that doesn't even pretend to rope in a national security theme. He asks about what they would do to cut entitlement programs because of a large and growing $11 trillion debt picture.

What about China? And those combat troops just sent into Africa? The implications of the Euro debt crisis? Does anyone know what the key takeaways of the Halifax International Security Forum were this past weekend (where 18 defense ministers including Leon Panetta and Ehud Barak assembled)?

How did we get back on entitlement program cuts?Wasn't that in the last debate?9:11 pm

Gingrich goes off on doing everything more efficiently. Most interestingly, he basically supports a more efficient Millennium Challenge Corporation. He also says that the only Iran bombing program he would support was one tied to regime change.Jon Huntsman says that "everything needs to be on the table" in cutting the budget deficit -- including defense! Brave comment at an even cosponsored by the American Enterprise Institute and Heritage Foundation. Says we need defense spending to match our strategy and objectives.

Wolf Blitzer asking Rick Perry about the failure of the Super Committee and asks if he would compromise with Democrats in Congress to help stop the large coming budget cuts. Perry turns the question into an assault on Obama's leadership -- doesn't mention Congress' failure at all.

OOPS. Perry says "half a trillion dollars" -- and then says with emphasis "500 million dollars." I'll leave that to others to play with.

9:03 pm

Mitt Romney says that his first foreign trip will be to Israel to show the world we care about that country. Pandering!! His first trip should be to either China, Mexico or Canada -- all rank far more significantly to the United States than Israel. Romney is fundraising tonight.8:57 pm

American Enterprise Institute foreign policy program director Danielle Pletka asks whether sanctions really make any difference in clipping Iran's nuclear weapons track. Rick Perry says "yes" and that the US and world should sanction Iran's central bank. Perry says that Obama has not had the backbone to cut off the central bank as of yet.

Newt Gingrich says we need a serious strategy for topping and replacing the Iranian regime using as minimal force as possible. Gingrich thinks that sanctioning Iran's central bank a good idea.

Michele Bachmann going after Iran because of its standing, overt threats to Israel. While I disagree with her overall framing, she has clearly studied up on foreign policy -- and has views that are generally informed and internally coherent. Impressive actually.

Now Paul Wolfowitz up and asking about Millennium Challenge program and foreign assistance. Rick Santorum says he completely supports Millennium Challenge Corporation and other forms of foreign aid as vital to the US. Santorum challenges those (like Rick Perry) who have talked about "zeroing out" all foreign assistance.Santorum's answer Messianic, all about spreading American values -- but still an internationalist even though he's got a Borg-like posture of wanting to assimilate the rest of the world to look like the US.

Cain says he'll support foreign aid if there is a tight plan, tight mission, tight objectives.

Ron Paul says that we are in big trouble at home -- endless wars, too much foreign aid, too much meddling abroad. He says the biggest threat to the United States today is America's domestic economic condition.

Ron Paul ties foreign policy to "Obama Care." I'm dizzy on that one. How did he get there?? Ron Paul hammering on Obama administration's so-called cuts. Says that nothing is getting cut.

8:47 pm

Big question: If Israel attacked Iran to help Tehran from getting nuclear weapons, would the candidates help Israel?

Herman Cain says that he would want to know what the likelihood of success was -- and what the mission and plan were. He would help if it was a solid plan and perhaps even join US forces to the Israel mission.

Ron Paul thinks that's crazy -- and wants to get out of Israel's way. If they want to do something, then they should go ahead and the US should not be involved. Says US is over-involved in Israel's key decisions.

8:44 pm

Former US Senator Rick Santorum says that the US is "fighting a war against radical Islam." Opened by saying that he agreed with Ron Paul (really??) that we are not fighting a war on terror.Now, taking a break.

So far, most impressive responses and positions -- in terms of coherence -- have been articulated by Michele Bachmann, Jon Huntsman and Ron Paul.8:41 pm

Romney says he's with the commanders. Huntsman counters by saying the Commander-in-Chief calls the shots, not commanders. During Vietnam, the President deferred too much to the generals. Romney, seems wounded, and says of course he knows that the Commander-in-Chief calls the shots. Newt looks and sounds ruffled and grouses at them for not playing by the debate rules.8:38 pm

Mitt Romney says we need to help bring Pakistan into "modernity." Also thinks that we need to stay in Afghanistan until the country can incrementally take over more of its core security responsibilities.

Jon Huntsman makes strong statement supporting withdrawal from Afghanistan -- says we have done nothing to define an "end point" in Afghanistan. Huntsman calls for 10-15,000 troops with much more limited roles in counter-terrorism and security support.

Romney says that this is not the "time for America to cut and run" from Afghanistan.8:34 pm

Governor Rick Perry says that he'd not give one dime of US aid to Pakistan unless it was tied directly to American interests.

Wow again! Michele Bachmann calls Perry "hopelessly naive", properly and maturely mentioning that Pakistan has nukes that could be vulnerable to terrorists and that we must be engaged and have a presence.

Perry says we need to stop writing "blank checks" to countries like Pakistan. Bachmann counters that our arrangements with Pakistan are "not blank checks". She says we are sharing a lot of intelligence information -- and she is largely correct, certainly more than Perry.8:30 pm

Jon Huntsman says Pakistan is the country that should be keeping us all up tonight. Says Army Commander General Kayani really running the country -- not President Zardari. Says that an expanded drone program would serve US interests but also says that 100,000 US troops in Afghanistan are not serving US interests.

Wow. Michele Bachmann knows about and mentioned the Haqqani Network. That's like getting an extra three points on FourSquare.

8:28 pm

Ed Meese launches things with a very wonky question about the investigatory powers of the Patriot Act, which he feels has helped stop more than forty acts of terror in the United States. Wonder if Herman Cain got that.

Newt Gingrich thinks that the US government and presidency should have many more powers to fight terrorism. Ron Paul says the Patriot Act is unpatriotic as it "undermines our liberties." Gingrich responds that Timothy McVeigh "succeeded."

Ron Paul implies that Gingrich advocates the building of a "police state." Michele Bachmann says that "we are in a very different kind of war." Bachmann says that we need to completely change the way that we investigate terrorist activities -- says Obama has "outsourced investigations to the ACLU." Jon Huntsman said that we have to be very careful about sacrificing our liberties -- says that it is part of the shining light of the United States abroad.

Mitt Romney said we can "do better" than TSA pat-downs. Mitt Romney says there is "crime" and there is "war" and that there is a body of law that applies to each. Really? Isn't the problem of our Kafkaesque secret prisons and Guantanamo detentions a function of the laws of war being thrown out and made up in ad hoc ways?

Rick Perry says that the Obama administration has been poor at drawing in intelligence from around the world to keep America safe. Who got bin Laden, Governor Perry? Wolf needs to drill down on some of these.

Santorum says "we are at war" and supports profiling of "Muslims" and "younger males" to chase down likely terror candidates. Ron Paul goes after Santorum for reckless with terms and words -- and says that this is a slippery slope to all Americans being at risk.

Rick Santorum throws punch at Obama on economy and national security. Ron Paul says that unnecessary wars undermine the nation. Rick Perry uses national security debate to talk about 29 years of "married bliss". Mitt Romney wants "to keep America strong and free." Herman Cain says America's national security has indeed "been downgraded." Newt Gingrich says that this is all about "the survival of the United States." Michele Bachmann wishes Happy Thanksgiving to soldiers around the world. Her dad was in Air Force (mine too). John Huntsman intros wife of 28 years who is sitting "fortuitously in the New Hampshire box."

8:06 pm

Wolf Blitzer intros Jon Huntsman as former US Ambassador to China but not as former Governor of Utah or Deputy US Trade Representative.

7:57 pm EST

I'm not at the Daughters of the American Revolution Constitution Hall tonight as are many of my friends preparing in moments to watch the CNN GOP national security debate -- but I'm going to blog it remotely.

Prediction: Herman Cain now knows more about what President Obama did and didn't do towards Libya.

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Writing used to be a solitary profession. How did it become so interminably social?

Whether we’re behind the podium or awaiting our turn, numbing our bottoms on the chill of metal foldout chairs or trying to work some life into our terror-stricken tongues, we introverts feel the pain of the public performance. This is because there are requirements to being a writer. Other than being a writer, I mean. Firstly, there’s the need to become part of the writing “community”, which compels every writer who craves self respect and success to attend community events, help to organize them, buzz over them, and—despite blitzed nerves and staggering bowels—present and perform at them. We get through it. We bully ourselves into it. We dose ourselves with beta blockers. We drink. We become our own worst enemies for a night of validation and participation.

Even when a dentist kills an adored lion, and everyone is furious, there’s loftier righteousness to be had.

Now is the point in the story of Cecil the lion—amid non-stop news coverage and passionate social-media advocacy—when people get tired of hearing about Cecil the lion. Even if they hesitate to say it.

But Cecil fatigue is only going to get worse. On Friday morning, Zimbabwe’s environment minister, Oppah Muchinguri, called for the extradition of the man who killed him, the Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer. Muchinguri would like Palmer to be “held accountable for his illegal action”—paying a reported $50,000 to kill Cecil with an arrow after luring him away from protected land. And she’s far from alone in demanding accountability. This week, the Internet has served as a bastion of judgment and vigilante justice—just like usual, except that this was a perfect storm directed at a single person. It might be called an outrage singularity.

Forget credit hours—in a quest to cut costs, universities are simply asking students to prove their mastery of a subject.

MANCHESTER, Mich.—Had Daniella Kippnick followed in the footsteps of the hundreds of millions of students who have earned university degrees in the past millennium, she might be slumping in a lecture hall somewhere while a professor droned. But Kippnick has no course lectures. She has no courses to attend at all. No classroom, no college quad, no grades. Her university has no deadlines or tenure-track professors.

Instead, Kippnick makes her way through different subject matters on the way to a bachelor’s in accounting. When she feels she’s mastered a certain subject, she takes a test at home, where a proctor watches her from afar by monitoring her computer and watching her over a video feed. If she proves she’s competent—by getting the equivalent of a B—she passes and moves on to the next subject.

The Wall Street Journal’s eyebrow-raising story of how the presidential candidate and her husband accepted cash from UBS without any regard for the appearance of impropriety that it created.

The Swiss bank UBS is one of the biggest, most powerful financial institutions in the world. As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton intervened to help it out with the IRS. And after that, the Swiss bank paid Bill Clinton $1.5 million for speaking gigs. TheWall Street Journal reported all that and more Thursday in an article that highlights huge conflicts of interest that the Clintons have created in the recent past.

The piece begins by detailing how Clinton helped the global bank.

“A few weeks after Hillary Clinton was sworn in as secretary of state in early 2009, she was summoned to Geneva by her Swiss counterpart to discuss an urgent matter. The Internal Revenue Service was suing UBS AG to get the identities of Americans with secret accounts,” the newspaper reports. “If the case proceeded, Switzerland’s largest bank would face an impossible choice: Violate Swiss secrecy laws by handing over the names, or refuse and face criminal charges in U.S. federal court. Within months, Mrs. Clinton announced a tentative legal settlement—an unusual intervention by the top U.S. diplomat. UBS ultimately turned over information on 4,450 accounts, a fraction of the 52,000 sought by the IRS.”

There’s no way this man could be president, right? Just look at him: rumpled and scowling, bald pate topped by an entropic nimbus of white hair. Just listen to him: ranting, in his gravelly Brooklyn accent, about socialism. Socialism!

And yet here we are: In the biggest surprise of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, this thoroughly implausible man, Bernie Sanders, is a sensation.

He is drawing enormous crowds—11,000 in Phoenix, 8,000 in Dallas, 2,500 in Council Bluffs, Iowa—the largest turnout of any candidate from any party in the first-to-vote primary state. He has raised $15 million in mostly small donations, to Hillary Clinton’s $45 million—and unlike her, he did it without holding a single fundraiser. Shocking the political establishment, it is Sanders—not Martin O’Malley, the fresh-faced former two-term governor of Maryland; not Joe Biden, the sitting vice president—to whom discontented Democratic voters looking for an alternative to Clinton have turned.

During the multi-country press tour for Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, not even Jon Stewart has dared ask Tom Cruise about Scientology.

During the media blitz for Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation over the past two weeks, Tom Cruise has seemingly been everywhere. In London, he participated in a live interview at the British Film Institute with the presenter Alex Zane, the movie’s director, Christopher McQuarrie, and a handful of his fellow cast members. In New York, he faced off with Jimmy Fallon in a lip-sync battle on The Tonight Show and attended the Monday night premiere in Times Square. And, on Tuesday afternoon, the actor recorded an appearance on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, where he discussed his exercise regimen, the importance of a healthy diet, and how he still has all his own hair at 53.

Stewart, who during his career has won two Peabody Awards for public service and the Orwell Award for “distinguished contribution to honesty and clarity in public language,” represented the most challenging interviewer Cruise has faced on the tour, during a challenging year for the actor. In April, HBO broadcast Alex Gibney’s documentary Going Clear, a film based on the book of the same title by Lawrence Wright exploring the Church of Scientology, of which Cruise is a high-profile member. The movie alleges, among other things, that the actor personally profited from slave labor (church members who were paid 40 cents an hour to outfit the star’s airplane hangar and motorcycle), and that his former girlfriend, the actress Nazanin Boniadi, was punished by the Church by being forced to do menial work after telling a friend about her relationship troubles with Cruise. For Cruise “not to address the allegations of abuse,” Gibney said in January, “seems to me palpably irresponsible.” But in The Daily Show interview, as with all of Cruise’s other appearances, Scientology wasn’t mentioned.

An attack on an American-funded military group epitomizes the Obama Administration’s logistical and strategic failures in the war-torn country.

Last week, the U.S. finally received some good news in Syria:.After months of prevarication, Turkey announced that the American military could launch airstrikes against Islamic State positions in Syria from its base in Incirlik. The development signaled that Turkey, a regional power, had at last agreed to join the fight against ISIS.

The announcement provided a dose of optimism in a conflict that has, in the last four years, killed over 200,000 and displaced millions more. Days later, however, the positive momentum screeched to a halt. Earlier this week, fighters from the al-Nusra Front, an Islamist group aligned with al-Qaeda, reportedly captured the commander of Division 30, a Syrian militia that receives U.S. funding and logistical support, in the countryside north of Aleppo. On Friday, the offensive escalated: Al-Nusra fighters attacked Division 30 headquarters, killing five and capturing others. According to Agence France Presse, the purpose of the attack was to obtain sophisticated weapons provided by the Americans.

The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse. Here’s what that means for its strategy—and for how to stop it.

What is the Islamic State?

Where did it come from, and what are its intentions? The simplicity of these questions can be deceiving, and few Western leaders seem to know the answers. In December, The New York Times published confidential comments by Major General Michael K. Nagata, the Special Operations commander for the United States in the Middle East, admitting that he had hardly begun figuring out the Islamic State’s appeal. “We have not defeated the idea,” he said. “We do not even understand the idea.” In the past year, President Obama has referred to the Islamic State, variously, as “not Islamic” and as al-Qaeda’s “jayvee team,” statements that reflected confusion about the group, and may have contributed to significant strategic errors.

Some say the so-called sharing economy has gotten away from its central premise—sharing.

This past March, in an up-and-coming neighborhood of Portland, Maine, a group of residents rented a warehouse and opened a tool-lending library. The idea was to give locals access to everyday but expensive garage, kitchen, and landscaping tools—such as chainsaws, lawnmowers, wheelbarrows, a giant cider press, and soap molds—to save unnecessary expense as well as clutter in closets and tool sheds.

The residents had been inspired by similar tool-lending libraries across the country—in Columbus, Ohio; in Seattle, Washington; in Portland, Oregon. The ethos made sense to the Mainers. “We all have day jobs working to make a more sustainable world,” says Hazel Onsrud, one of the Maine Tool Library’s founders, who works in renewable energy. “I do not want to buy all of that stuff.”

A controversial treatment shows promise, especially for victims of trauma.

It’s straight out of a cartoon about hypnosis: A black-cloaked charlatan swings a pendulum in front of a patient, who dutifully watches and ping-pongs his eyes in turn. (This might be chased with the intonation, “You are getting sleeeeeepy...”)

Unlike most stereotypical images of mind alteration—“Psychiatric help, 5 cents” anyone?—this one is real. An obscure type of therapy known as EMDR, or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, is gaining ground as a potential treatment for people who have experienced severe forms of trauma.

Here’s the idea: The person is told to focus on the troubling image or negative thought while simultaneously moving his or her eyes back and forth. To prompt this, the therapist might move his fingers from side to side, or he might use a tapping or waving of a wand. The patient is told to let her mind go blank and notice whatever sensations might come to mind. These steps are repeated throughout the session.